Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH

  She Learns to See

  WITH the new morning, certain reflections found their way into my mindwhich were not of the most welcome sort. There was one serious element ofembarrassment in my position towards Lucilla, which had not discovereditself to me when Nugent and I parted at the rectory gate.

  Browndown was now empty. In the absence of both the brothers, what was Ito say to Lucilla when the false Oscar failed to pay her his promisedvisit that day?

  In what a labyrinth of lies had the first fatal suppression of the truthinvolved us all! One deception after another had been forced on us; onedisaster after another had followed retributively as the result--and, nowthat I was left to deal single-handed with the hard necessities of ourposition, no choice seemed left to me but to go on deceiving Lucillastill! I was weary of it and ashamed of it. At breakfast-time, I evadedall further discussion of the subject, after I had first ascertained thatLucilla did not expect her visitor before the afternoon. For some timeafter breakfast, I kept her at the piano. When she wearied of music, andbegan to talk of Oscar once more, I put on my hat, and set forth on adomestic errand (of the kind usually entrusted to Zillah), solely for thepurpose of keeping out of the way, and putting off to the last moment thehateful necessity of telling more lies. The weather stood my friend. Itthreatened to rain; and Lucilla, on that account, refrained fromproposing to accompany me.

  My errand took me to a farm-house on the road which led to Brighton.After settling my business, I prolonged my walk, though the rain wasalready beginning to fall. I had nothing on me that would spoil; and, inmy present frame of mind, a wet gown was a preferable alternative toreturning to the rectory.

  After I had walked about a mile further on, the solitude of the road wasenlivened by the appearance of an open carriage approaching me from thedirection of Brighton. The hood was up to protect the person inside fromthe rain. The person looked out as I passed, and stopped the carriage ina voice which I instantly recognized as the voice of Grosse. Our gallantoculist insisted (in the state of the weather) on my instantly takingshelter by his side and returning with him to the house.

  "This is an unexpected pleasure," I said. "I thought you had arranged notto see Lucilla again till the end of the week."

  Grosse's eyes glared at me through his spectacles with a dignity andgravity worthy of Mr. Finch himself.

  "Shall I tell you something?" he said. "You see sitting at your side alost surgeon-optic. I shall die soon. Put on my tombs, if you please, Themalady which killed this German mans was--Lofely Feench. When I am awayfrom her--gif me your sympathies: I so much want it--I sweat withanxiousness for young Miss. Your damn-mess-fix about those two broddersis a sort of perpetual blisters on my mind. Instead of snoring peaceablyall night in my nice big English beds, I roll wide awake on my pillows,fidgeting for Feench. I am here to-day before my time. For what? For totry her eyes--you think? Goot Madam, you think wrong! It is not her eyeswhich troubles me. Her eyes will do. It is You--and the odders at yourrectory-place. You make me nervous-anxious about my patients. I am afraidsome of you will let the mess-fix of those brodder-twins find its way toher pretty ears, and turn her poor little mind topsy-turvies when I amnot near to see to it in time. Will you let her be comfortable-easy fortwo months more? Ach Gott! if I could only be certain-sure of _that,_ Imight leave those weak new eyes of hers to cure themselves, and go myways back to London again."

  I had intended to remonstrate with him pretty sharply for taking Lucillato Browndown. After what he had now said, it was useless to attemptanything of that sort--and doubly useless to hope that he would let meextricate myself from my difficulties by letting me tell her the truth.

  "Of course you are the best judge," I said. "But you little know whatthese precautions of yours cost the unfortunate people who are left tocarry them out."

  He took me up sharply at those words.

  "You shall judge for yourself," he said, "if it is not worth the cost. Ifher eyes satisfy me--Feench shall learn to see to-day. You shall standby, you obstinate womans, and judge if it is goot to add shock andagitation to the exhaustions and irritabilities and bedevilments of allsorts which our poor Miss must suffer in learning to see, after beingblind for all her life. No more of it now, till we get to therectory-place." By way of changing the subject for the present, he put aquestion to me which I felt it necessary to answer with some caution."How is my nice boys?--my bright-clever Nugent?" he asked.

  "Very well."

  There I stopped, not feeling at all sure of the ground I was treading on.

  "Mind this!" Grosse went on. "My bright-boy-Nugent keeps hercomfortable-easy. My bright-boy-Nugent is worth all the rest of youtogedder. I insist on his making his visits to young Miss at therectory-place, in spite of that windy-talky-puff-bag-Feench-father ofhers. I say positively--Nugent shall come into the house."

  There was no help for it now. I was obliged to tell him that Nugent hadleft Browndown, and that I was the person who had sent him away.

  For a moment, I was really in doubt whether the skilled hand of the greatsurgeon would not be ignobly employed in boxing my ears. No perversion ofspelling can possibly report the complicated German-English jargon inwhich his fury poured itself out on my devoted head. Let it be enough tosay that he declared Nugent's abominable personation of his brother to bevitally important--so long as Oscar was absent--to his successfultreatment of the sensitive and excitable patient whom we had placed underhis care. I vainly assured him that Nugent's object in leaving Dimchurchwas to set matters right again by bringing his brother back. Grosseflatly declined to allow himself to be influenced by any speculativeconsideration of that sort. He said (and swore) that my meddling hadraised a serious obstacle in his way, and that nothing but his own tenderregard for Lucilla prevented him from "turning the coachmans back," andleaving us henceforth to shift for ourselves.

  When we reached the rectory gate, he had cooled a little. As we crossedthe garden, he reminded me that I stood pledged to be present when thebandage was taken off.

  "Now mind!" he said. "You are going to see, if it is goot or bad to tellher that she has had those nice white arms of hers round the wrongbrodder. You are going to tell me afterwards, if you dare say to her, inplain English words, 'Blue-Face is the man.'"

  We found Lucilla in the sitting-room. Grosse briefly informed her that hehad nothing particular to occupy him in London, and that he had advancedthe date of his visit on that account. "You want something to do, mylofe, on this soaky-rainy day. Show Papa-Grosse what you can do with youreyes, now you have got them back again." With those words, he unfastenedthe bandage, and, taking her by the chin, examined her eyes--firstwithout his magnifying glass; then with it.

  "Am I going on well?" she asked anxiously.

  "Famous-well! You go on (as my goot friends say in America) first-class.Now use your eyes for yourself. Gif one lofing look to Grosse first.Then--see! see! see!"

  There was no mistaking the tone in which he spoke to her.

  He was not only satisfied about her eyes--he was triumphant. "Soh!" hegrunted, turning to me. "Why is Mr. Sebrights not here to look at this?"

  I eagerly approached Lucilla. There was still a little dimness left inher eyes. I noticed also that they moved to and fro restlessly, and (attimes) wildly. But, oh, the bright change in her! the new life of beautywhich the new sense had bestowed on her already! Her smile, alwayscharming, now caught light from her lips, and spread its gentlefascination over all her face. It was impossible not to long to kiss her.I advanced to congratulate, to embrace her. Grosse stepped forward, andchecked me.

  "No," he said. "Walk your ways to the odder end of the rooms--and let ussee if _she_ can go to _you._"

  Like all other people, knowing no more of the subject than I knew, I hadno idea of the pitiably helpless manner in which the restored sense ofsight struggles to assert itself, in persons who have been blind forlife. In such cases, the effort of the eyes that are first learning tosee, is like the effo
rt of the limbs when a child is first learning towalk. But for Grosse's odd way of taking it, the scene which I was now towitness would have been painful in the last degree. My poorLucilla--instead of filling me with joy, as I had anticipated--would Ireally believe have wrung my heart, and have made me burst out crying.

  "Now!" said Grosse, laying one hand on Lucilla's arm, while he pointed tome with the other. "There she stands. Can you go to her?"

  "Of course I can!"

  "I lay you a bet-wager you can _not!_ Ten thausand pounds to six pennies.Done-done. Now try!"

  She answered by a little gesture of defiance, and took three hasty stepsforward. Bewildered and frightened, she stopped suddenly at the thirdstep--before she had advanced half the way from her end of the room tomine.

  "I saw her here," she said, pointing down to the spot on which she wasstanding; and appealing piteously to Grosse. "I see her now--and I don'tknow where she is! She is so near, I feel as if she touched my eyes--andyet" (she advanced another step, and clutched with her hands at the emptyair)--"and yet, I can't get near enough to take hold of her. Oh! whatdoes it mean? what does it mean?"

  "It means--pay me my six pennies!" said Grosse. "The wager-bet is mine!"

  She resented his laughing at her, with an obstinate shake of her head,and an angry knitting of her pretty eyebrows.

  "Wait a little," she said. "You shan't win quite so easily as that. Iwill get to her yet!"

  She came straight to me in a moment--just as easily as I could have goneto her myself if I had tried.

  "Another wager-bet!" cried Grosse, still standing behind her, andcalling to me. "Twenty thousand pounds this time to a fourpennies-bit._She has shut her eyes to get to you._ Hey!"

  It was true--she had blindfolded herself! With her eyes closed, shecould measure to a hair's breadth the distance which, with her eyesopened, she was perfectly incompetent to calculate! Detected by both ofus, she sat down, poor dear, with a sigh of despair. "Was it worthwhile," she said to me sadly, "to go through the operation for _this?_"

  Grosse joined us at our end of the room.

  "All in goot time," he said. "Patience--and these helpless eyes of yourswill learn. Soh! I shall begin to teach them now. You have got your ownnotions--hey?--about this colors and that? When you were blind, did youthink what would be your favorite colors if you could see? You did? Whichcolors is it? Tell me. Come!"

  "White first," she answered. "Then scarlet."

  Grosse paused, and considered.

  "White, I understand," he said. "White is the fancy of a young girls. Butwhy scarlets? Could you see scarlets when you were blind?"

  "Almost," she answered, "if it was bright enough. I used to feelsomething pass before my eyes when scarlet was shown to me."

  "In these cataracts-cases, it is constantly scarlets that they almostsee," muttered Grosse to himself. "There must be reason for this--and Imust find him." He went on with his questions to Lucilla. "And the colorsyou hate most--which is _he?_"

  "Black."

  Grosse nodded his head approvingly. "I thought so," he said. "It isalways black that they hate. For this also there must be reason--and Imust find _him._"

  Having expressed that resolution, he approached the writing-table, andtook a sheet of paper out of the case, and a circular pen-wiper ofscarlet cloth out of the inkstand. After that, he looked about him;waddled back to the other end of the room; and fetched the black felt hatin which he had traveled from London. He ranged the hat, the paper, andthe pen-wiper in a row. Before he could put his next question to her, shepointed to the hat with a gesture of disapproval.

  "Take it away," she said. "I don't like that."

  Grosse stopped me before I could speak.

  "Wait a little," he whispered in my ear. "It is not quite so wonderful asyou think. These blind peoples, when they first see, have all alike thesame hatred of anything what is dark." He turned to Lucilla. "Say," heasked. "Is your favorite colors among these things here?"

  She passed by the hat in contempt; looked at the pen-wiper, and put itdown; looked at the sheet of paper, and put it down; hesitated--and againshut her eyes.

  "No!" cried Grosse. "I won't have it! How dare you blind yourself, in thepresence of Me? What! I give you back your sights, and you go shut youreyes. Open them--or I will put you in the corner like a naughty girls.Your favorite colors? Now, now, now!"

  She opened her eyes (very unwillingly), and looked once more at thepen-wiper and the paper.

  "I see nothing as bright as my favorite colors here," she said.

  Grosse held up the sheet of paper, and pressed the question withoutmercy.

  "What! is white, whiter than this?"

  "Fifty thousand times whiter than that!"

  "Goot. Now mind! This paper is white," (he snatched her handkerchief outof her apron-pocket). "This handkerchief is white, too; whitest of white,both of them. First lesson, my lofe! Here in my hands is your favoritecolors, in the time when you were blind."

  "_Those!_" she exclaimed, pointing to the paper and the handkerchief,with a look of blank disappointment as he dropped them on the table. Sheturned over the pen-wiper and the hat, and looked round at me. Grosse,waiting to try another experiment, left it to me to answer. The result,in both cases, was the same as in the cases of the sheet of paper and thehandkerchief. Scarlet was not half as red--black, not one-hundredth partas black--as her imagination had figured them to her, in the days whenshe was blind. Still, as to this last color--as to black--she could feelsome little encouragement. It had affected her disagreeably (just as poorOscar's face had affected her), though she had not actually known it forthe color that she disliked. She made an effort, poor child, to assertherself, against her merciless surgeon-teacher. "I didn't know it wasblack," she said. "But I hated the sight of it, for all that."

  She tried, as she spoke, to toss the hat on to a chair, standing closeby her--and threw it instead, high above the back of the chair, againstthe wall, at least six feet away from the object at which she had aimed."I am a helpless fool!" she burst out; her face flushing crimson withmortification. "Don't let Oscar see me! I can't bear the thought ofmaking myself ridiculous before _him!_ He is coming here," she added,turning to me entreatingly. "Manage to make some excuse for his notseeing me till later in the day."

  I promised to find the excuse--all the more readily, that I now saw anunexpected chance of reconciling her in some degree (so long as she waslearning to see) to the blank produced in her life by Oscar's absence.

  She addressed herself again to Grosse.

  "Go on!" she said impatiently. "Teach me to be something better than anidiot--or put the bandage on, and blind me again. My eyes are of no useto me! Do you hear?" she cried furiously, taking him by his broadshoulders and shaking him with all her might--"my eyes are of no use tome!"

  "Now! now! now!" cried Grosse. "If you don't keep your tempers, youlittle spitfire, I will teach you nothing." He took up the sheet of paperand the pen-wiper; and, forcing her to sit down, placed them togetherbefore her, in her lap.

  "Do you know one thing?" he went on. "Do you know what is meant by anobjects which is square? Do you know what is meant by an objects which isround?"

  Instead of answering him, she appealed indignantly to my opinion.

  "Is it not monstrous," she asked, "to hear him put such a question to meas that? Do I know round from square? Oh, how cruelly humiliating! Don'ttell Oscar! don't tell Oscar!"

  "If you know," persisted Grosse, "you can tell me. Look at those twothings in your lap. Are they both round? or both square? or is one round?and the odder square? Look now, and tell me."

  She looked--and said nothing.

  "Well?" continued Grosse.

  "You put me out, standing there staring at me through your horridspectacles!" she said irritably. "Don't look at me, and I will tell youdirectly."

  Grosse turned his head my way, with his diabolical grin; and signed to meto keep watch on her, in his place.

  The instant his back was turned, sh
e shut her eyes, and ran over thepaper and the pen-wiper with the tips of her fingers!

  "One is round and one is square," she answered, cunningly opening hereyes again, just in time to bear critical inspection when Grosse turnedround towards her once more.

  He took the paper and the pen-wiper out of her hands; and (thoroughlyunderstanding the trick she had played him) changed them for a bronzesaucer and a book. "Which is round? and which is square of these?" heasked, holding them up before her.

  She looked first at one, and then at the other--plainly incapable (withonly her eyes to help her) of answering the question.

  "I put you out--don't I?" said Grosse. "You can't shut your eyes, mylofely Feench, while I am looking--can you?"

  She turned red--then pale again. I began to be afraid she would burst outcrying. Grosse managed her to perfection. The tact of this rough, ugly,eccentric old man was the most perfect tact I have ever met with.

  "Shut your eyes," he said soothingly. "It is the right ways to learn.Shut your eyes, and take them in your hands, and tell me which is roundand which is square in that way first."

  She told him directly.

  "Goot! now open your eyes, and see for yourself it is the saucers youhave got in your right hand, and the books you have got in your left. Yousee? Goot again! Put them back on the table now. What shall we do next?"

  "May I try if I can write?" she asked eagerly. "I do so want to see if Ican write with my eyes instead of my finger."

  "No! Ten thausand times no! I forbid reading; I forbid writing, yet. Comewith me to the window. How do these most troublesome eyes of yours do ata distance?"

  While we had been trying our experiment with Lucilla, the weather hadbrightened again. The clouds were parting; the sun was coming out; thebright gaps of blue in the sky were widening every moment; the shadowswere traveling grandly over the windy slopes of the hills. Lucilla liftedher hands in speechless admiration as the German threw open the window,and placed her face to face with the view.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed, "don't speak to me! don't touch me!--let me enjoyit! There is no disappointment _here._ I have never thought, I have neverdreamed, of anything half so beautiful as _this!_"

  Grosse looked at me, and silently pointed to her. She had turnedpale--she was trembling in every limb, overwhelmed by her own ecstaticsense of the glory of the sky and the beauty of the earth, as they nowmet her view for the first time. I penetrated the surgeon's object indirecting my attention to her. "See" (he meant to say), "what adelicately-organized creature we have to deal with! Is it possible to betoo careful in handling such a sensitive temperament as that?"Understanding him only too well, I also trembled when I thought of thefuture. Everything now depended on Nugent. And Nugent's own lips had toldme that he could not depend on himself!

  It was a relief to me when Grosse interrupted her.

  She pleaded hard to be allowed to stay at the window a little longer. Herefused to allow it. Upon that she flew instantly into the oppositeextreme. "I am in my own room, and I am my own mistress," she saidangrily. "I insist on having my own way." Grosse was ready with hisanswer.

  "Take your own ways; fatigue those weak new eyes of yours--and to-morrow,when you try to look out of window, you will not be able to see at all."This reply terrified her into instant submission. She assisted inreplacing the bandage with her own hands. "May I go away to my own room?"she asked, with the simplicity of a child. "I have seen such beautifulsights--and I do so want to think of them by myself."

  The medical adviser instantly granted the patient's request. Anyproceeding which tended to compose her, was a proceeding of which hehighly approved.

  "If Oscar comes," she whispered, as she passed me on her way to the door,"mind I hear of it! and mind you don't tell him of the mistakes I havemade!" She paused for a moment, thinking. "I don't understand myself,"she said. "I never was so happy in my life. And yet I feel almost readyto cry!" She turned towards Grosse. "Come here, papa. You have been verygood to me to-day. I will give you a kiss." She laid her hands lightly onhis shoulders; kissed his lined and wrinkled cheek; gave me a littlesqueeze round the waist--and left us. Grosse turned sharply to thewindow, and used his huge silk handkerchief for a purpose to which (Isuspect) it had not been put for many a long year past.